


Whitehall's Best Kept Secret

by Britpacker



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, secrecy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 07:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No wonder they can’t run a government department.  The DoSAC lot really are dense.  For Malcolm, occasionally, that may not be such a bad thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One - DoSAC

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at a (hopefully) humorous take on Nicola and the gang. No matter how hard Malcolm tries to keep his private life just that, somebody's going to speculate...

The department was quiet. That was her first clue.

Two thick files balanced across her arms and a cup of strong black coffee dangling precariously from her right hand Terri headed the length of the office toward her likeliest source of information: she wouldn’t dare say intelligence, though the serene blankness of Oliver Reeder’s expression offered an answer before her question was asked. Nobody – or nobody who’d been working here more than a week – looked that blatantly bored when Number Ten’s Director of Communications, the P.M’s all-seeing, all-swearing eye, was on the premises.

Still, good manners demanded she ask. “Ollie, is Malcolm in yet?”

“Would I be playing online fucking Sudoku if he was?” From behind the stack of files towering over his desk Glenn snorted, but Terri didn’t turn a hair. More newsworthy things happened in government than a minor aide timewasting in working hours. Even – occasionally - at DoSAC.

“He’s supposed to be briefing Nicola for her lifestyle piece with the _Observer_ but I thought I’d run the drafts for tomorrow’s press release past him first.” Ollie had written much of the stuff and even he rolled his eyes. “Deli vouchers for reforming delinquents might go down well with the Hug A Hoodie Select Committee but I’m not sure about the press.”

“It’ll go down like a dose of clap in a convent, Terri!” Glenn exclaimed. “And that’s a story we might have to leak to deflect some of the shit that’ll be coming our way. I can’t believe even _she_ thinks it’s worth floating.”

“The minister wants to encourage disadvantaged young people to improve themselves,” Terri pointed out, not bothering to keep her disdain from the scripted phrase.

Ollie tried in vain to turn his guffaw into a coughing fit.

“And she wants to keep herself in the headlines.” Glenn grimaced.

“Has she not been a politician long enough to know it’s more sensible to keep out of them?”

“Sensible politicians.” Terri rolled the words around her tongue as if they were melted chocolate. “Nicola’s my fifth minister and I’ve not had one of those yet!”

“Malcolm’s going to savage it,” Ollie announced as if he was imparting some great news. 

“Of course he is.” Triumphant, Terri dumped her unwanted pile of pointless paperwork onto his desk, knocking his pen pot onto the floor with deadly accuracy in the process. “And when he’s finished ripping it and her into tiny, bloody pieces, we can all forget about it. I heard he was almost pleasant to Culture this morning.”

Two pairs of eyebrows shot skywards. “Department of Shit Aims and Contradictions today, are we?” Glenn wondered. “Sensible ministers and Pol Pottymouth being pleasant!”

“She did qualify that,” Ollie pointed out.

“Just as well or I’d be getting her sectioned. What do you mean anyway, _almost_ pleasant?”

“Did you see the minister on _Breakfast_?”

“Something about the OED word of the year?" Glenn asked. “I was half asleep when it started and that pudding-faced twat’s voice worked like a fucking lullaby.”

“Something about it being government policy to preserve the integrity of the glorious English language without these vulgar Americanisms creeping in like nettle rash. He sounded even more ridiculous than usual. Apparently Malcolm decided to _drop by_ on his way to Number Ten.”

“Oh, I bet Culture loved that,” Ollie muttered. “He’s bad enough when you’re wide a-fucking-wake. Being Tuckered straight after your muesli or whatever they eat over there….”

“He called the minister a cunt without even raising his voice. That’s almost a compliment from him, so I thought if he’s in a good mood…”

A glacial wind swept the office. Even the oversized pot plants seemed to take on a thin veneer of frost. “You didn’t hear the Chief Shitwipe to the Treasury on _The World At One_?” Glenn hinted.

For a press officer Terri Coverley had a lousy poker-face and she knew it. Her chin wobbled. “He’s not my department.”

“Count your very few blessings,” Ollie told her devoutly. “He started up on that skinny wanker Holman – you know: offshore bank accounts, pays fifty p tax a year from his Bermuda beach house but finds five hundred thousand smackeroos down the back of the sofa for his Old Etonian mate in return for a promise of one of those things we used to flog off for a fiver…”

“Shit.” Brief, eloquent and to the point. If only her press releases could be the same. “Did he miss the Armageddon memo last year?”

“Arma-Fucking-Geddon,” Ollie corrected. “Subtitled “The Quickest Fucking Way To Drown Your Own Fucking Government In An Ocean Of Piss And Vomit.” Credit to Sam, she gets the authentic voice of _Angry Bastard_ coming off the page like a fuckin’ foghorn. That’s a skill in a PA, that.”

“Probably had too many long words in it for the Treasury,” Glenn remarked, bringing minds back to the topic at hand. “The last I heard, Malcolm was ripping through the building at Force Twelve on the Fuckter Scale. It might be an idea to shelve the policy bollocks ‘til Hell freezes over.”

“Or until another fucking administration comes in, which’ll be this time next fucking Wednesday if those shit-brained CUNTS don’t do us all a favour and stuff their empty fuckin’ heads back up their own arses, _once_ I’ve finished turnin’ their tiny cocks into polished fucking rosary beads! Next time anyone mentions the price of a pointless bit of cheap plastic tat in a box I’m going to steal the Queen’s best fuckin’ kitchen knife and ram it up their shitters pointy end first. Jesus _Christ_ , wouldn’t you know the one time that boring PRICK opens his useless mouth all year he has t’ turn into a fucking circus act! Who’d have thought Four-Bellies Fraser’d be flexible enough to get both feet into his fuckin’ MOUTH!”

How he did it was one of the great mysteries of Whitehall but there he was, looming up like a skinny thundercloud straight out of nowhere: Malcolm Tucker in all his glowering, vituperative glory. She didn’t mean to. She was used to him. Even so, Terri couldn’t stop herself just ever-so-slightly cowering.

She knew he’d noticed from the mere flicker of a blistering glance that could have stripped the paint from her toenails before he even turned his full attention toward her. “Now, is the lady of the fucking manor ready for her bollocking yet?”

“Ah, I think she’s still tied up with the Permanent Secretary to the Home Office. I’ve got you a coffee if you’re able to wait?”

Penetrating grey eyes bored through her. “I’m no’ hangin’ around while she finishes whatever sado-masochistic _thing_ she’s got goin’ on with that Oxbridge twat,” Tucker hissed, the final two words evidently reminding him of his audience. “Speaking of which; you still in touch with that demented trollop from the other side?”

Ollie blinked rapidly. “Well, I’ve still got her number; always assuming she didn’t change it.”

“I bet they all do that! Call her - do something useful for the first time since you came off the tit. Make it clear – in confidence – that Four-Bellies is gonna be knocked off the end of Brighton fucking Pier at the next reshuffle, right?”

The younger man cleared his throat. “Erm, I’m not sure there’s been anything said about a reshuffle this side of the recess,” he ventured.

“The PM said the same but you’ve got that in common, you’re both a month behind the fuckin’ times, aren’t ye?”

“Yes, right, reshuffle, of course.” With Malcolm in his face, gimlet stare boring a hole right through his forehead Ollie crumbled, fumbling around the desk for his phone without daring to break free of the irate Scotsman’s enveloping menace. “That’s been in the pipeline for a while, hasn’t it, but since we’re all tight as a five-year-old’s hymen nobody’s leaked a word…”

“One of these days you might almost make semi-competent y’ over-educated blithering ponce. Terri! Tell Mrs Doubtfire I’ll have Sam call her when I’m available for wet-nursin’ through a fucking fluff piece. Treasury outranks DoSAC, especially when those half-witted TWATS leave their _Baby’s First_ fucking _Abacus_ and start trying to play politics with the fuckin’ grown-ups!”

Before anyone’s jaw could come up off the floor he was gone, stalking out in a toxic cloud of muttered invective and righteous fury. “Excuse me while I just go and hang myself,” Glenn announced, wincing from the creak of bone as he eased up from his chair. 

Terri blinked, then downed the coffee she had intended for their guest in one satisfyingly scalding mouthful. “Thank God I don’t work at the Treasury,” she muttered. “Hot drinks for Hoodies doesn’t seem such a disaster now.”

Ollie blinked like Ben Swain on a bad day. Swallowed hard. “Terri, I’m going to say something.”

“It’s not technically against the rules.”

“No, seriously, this is going to sound as batshit as the whole Deli Delinquents thing, but… I think Malcolm’s got a girlfriend.”

Her first reaction was to laugh. The next was to slump sideways into Glenn’s vacated chair and call for the men in white coats. “You’ve been under a lot of strain, Ollie,” she said kindly. “It happens us all at times, don’t worry. What makes you say…”

“Well he’s just been right in my face, right.”

“I think he finds it therapeutic.”

“And he smelled of perfume.”

“Ollie.” Sometimes it seemed to Terri their terrifying visitor was too kind to the spineless, dribbling little twerp. “Malcolm may act like a shop steward on a rampage sometimes but he has very good taste: just look at his suits! And he wears _very_ expensive aftershave.”

“He smelled of jasmine.”

“How would you know what – no, no, don’t answer, I don’t want to know that.”

“Angela wears it. Or at least,” he corrected quickly, “she did the last time I face-planted her cleavage. I’m telling you, Terri: there’s been a woman wearing perfume rubbed up against Malcolm McFucking Mugabe in the last couple of hours.”

Terrified as small children finding Daddy mincing Mummy in the garden shed they gaped at each other. “Not Malcolm,” Terri whispered, feeling more than a little faint. “I mean, he wouldn’t… no woman would dare!”

“It’s like the Devil with his hands down Saint Helena’s knickers.” If Ollie was using blasphemous imagery like that he’d definitely been around a certain Celtic-supporting Glaswegian too long. “I know what he usually smells like,” he said, defiant in the face of her incomprehension. “And it’s not fucking jasmine and lilies, all right?”

“In this department it never is. Thanks for your time, Philip, I appreciate your input.” Though her smile couldn’t have been tighter if she’d just come out of the plastic surgeon’s the Right Honourable Nicola Murray M.P. sounded perfectly sincere as she pumped the civil servant’s hand. “Terri, was that Malcolm I heard before? I’m late, aren’t I?”

“Oh, he’s been called away, Minister – urgent business with the P.M, he’ll have Sam call you when he’s free.”

If Sir Philip Moss noticed the quiver in her voice he would put it down to the Tucker Effect, that well-known phenomenon affecting departmental press officers after contact with the Prime Minister’s semi-domesticated wolf. Not so Nicola, who fixed her with a puzzled look, ushered her guest as far as the lift then turned, hands firmly planted on hips to stare. “Well?”

“What?”

“Why are you gawping like stunned goldfish in front of the most senior civil servant ever to dirty his shoes in DoSAC’s dust? _What the fuck is the matter with you?_ ”

“It’s Ollie’s fault.”

“Oh, fuck you very much, how come it’s my fault?”

With them both on their feet she was at a distinct disadvantage but Terri met him glare for glare. “It was your stupid idea!” she yelped.

Instantly the Minister for Interminable Meddling was intrigued. “We could do with another stupid idea,” she said brightly. “Considering the best we’ve got for me to float with the _Observer_ is your Delinquent Deli shit.”

“It’s not that kind of idea. Sorry.” Ollie had the grace to look embarrassed. “It’s just – well, I’m wondering if Malcolm’s got a bit on the side.”

“On the side of…oh.” She was dense, but not as clueless as her predecessor. “Oh, come on, Ollie, you’ve got the wrong fucking day! April Fools’ was last Thursday.”

“No, seriously, he smells of fucking _jasmine_. I mean you’re a woman, Nicola…”

“So am I!” Terri exclaimed. Ollie ignored her.

“So you’d have an idea if it’s a goer, right? I mean he’s fuckin’ terrifying even when he’s being nice, but maybe some women go for that whole _alpha male_ thing. Would you…”

“He _was_ married, you know,” Terri pointed out, glancing around to make sure he was really gone. The last person to mention that fact in Malcolm’s presence hadn’t sat down for a week after without wincing, according to the rumour he might well have started himself.

“Still wears the ring.”

“Tight-fisted bastard’s probably hanging onto it ‘til the price of gold goes up.” They were getting off the subject. Ollie wasn’t sure that was a bad thing: the idea of Malcolm shagging was almost as alarming as the prospect of Malcolm catching anyone thinking about Malcolm shagging, but now the thought was in his head and he couldn’t disinfect his brain cells of it. “I mean I’ve heard rumours about that BBC health correspondent, and…”

“I’d heard one about the deputy political editor of _The Times_ ,” Terri cut in.

“They were quite nice to us for a while – even backed us during the first election,” Ollie agreed. “OK, so it’s _possible_ , but…”

“Don’t!” Nicola stuffed her fingers into her ears. “I’ve got to have a meeting with him later. I don’t want to be thinking about this when he’s bollocking me!”

“Might take your mind off the actual subject of the bollocking?” 

“Shut up, Ollie. Nicola, if you’re being bollocked by Malcolm, pay attention. He doesn’t mind bollocking someone twice in a row but he gets _really_ annoyed if it’s twice over the same thing.”

“That’s one good thing about DoSAC,” Nicola mused, looking almost cheerful as she retreated to her office. “We fuck up enough different things that he’s always got some different shit to throw at me! When Sam calls…”

“I’ll have a car ready,” Ollie assured her. He waited until she was incommunicado before adding with a rueful grin, “and a hearse for the journey back.”


	2. Number 10 Downing Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nicola’s been summoned. She’d be well advised to remember all the useful Malcolm-management tips she’s been given and keep her mind on the job…

She couldn’t help it. As she approached the nerve centre of government communications Nicola felt a familiar fluttering of approaching panic in her belly. The waiting area was quiet: usually a sign the boss was in residence and ears were being strained to catch a faint wisp of the latest telephone tirade for a clue as to any new line. “Hi, Sam. Is Malcolm…”

“Hello, Minister.” With her sleek brown ponytail and understated grey skirt suit Sam (never Samantha, it was the first rule given to incoming ministers in the Director of Communications’ introductory notes) Cassidy could have been any successful man’s discreet, efficient P.A. Even her smile, professional and polite to the point of blandness, betrayed nothing of her unique position as one of the few human beings Malcolm Tucker didn’t seem to hate with a visceral passion. “He’s got the Foreign Secretary on the line at the moment. Can I get you tea, or coffee?”

“No, thanks.” He might be one of the big beasts of the Cabinet but Alan’s calls, like everyone else’s, were evidently interruptable for Sam. “Malcolm? Nicola Murray is here.”

The tail-end of a curse crackled over the speakerphone. “Two minutes!” Tucker snapped. Sam’s slim shoulders raised in an apologetic shrug.

“Sorry to mess you around with the timings, Minister,” she said, killing the connection with the flick of a manicured nail. “What with the cash-for-honours thing blowing up again he’s been a bit… busy.”

“He’s having a good day then.” The code for “tearing a strip off each Cabinet and junior minister in turn” was part of the unofficial introduction to the job. The non-committal smile in response was all the warning she needed. “Pity we can’t just cancel this _Observer_ piece. James doesn’t like it anyway.”

“It’d probably look odd if we cancelled at this late stage.” How was it, Nicola wondered, he even got a P.A. who could converse intelligently and type at top speed at the same time? Her staff couldn’t do one of two things individually without crossing their multi-coloured wires! 

“Better to look like we’re not panicking even if we are?” she suggested. The younger woman’s brown eyes twinkled. 

“Always best not to look like we’re panicking,” she agreed, snapping her phone off its hook before the first irritating ring was completed. “Malcolm Tucker’s office. Oh, hello, Tanya, what can we…”

Lulled by the quiet competence of the younger woman’s voice Nicola let her mind start to wander dangerously close to Reeder territory. Malcolm trusted Sam; allowed her a spare key to his office, which even the Prime Minister wasn’t permitted to enter unaccompanied. If anyone would know, surely it would be Sam?

And if one person alive was less likely to gossip about her formidable employer Nicola had never met them. The soul of discretion, Sam. Considering the number of oral live autopsies she must have witnessed during her career, Nicola didn’t blame her.

“No, that’s fine, Tanya, I’ll let Malcolm know when he’s finished his current meeting.” Nicola’s heart skipped a beat. Tanya? A woman? With something to be passed on to Malcolm? 

By the arch of one well-marked eyebrow Sam indicated to the fidgeting minister exactly which meeting she had in mind. “No, no, it’s a simple misunderstanding, that’s all. What was it your source said? “Tony Watkins wouldn’t know what the OED is anyway since his local library was shut down by the other bastards running his local authority.” Yes, I’ll pass it on verbatim and thanks for calling. Yes, always best to confirm these things. Bye.”

For a split second when the receiver went down, her perfect mask slipped. “If the Treasury story wasn’t bad enough we’ve still got the _Standard_ after Culture’s opinion of the new dictionary,” Sam explained ruefully, taking a quick sip of her own cooling coffee. “If you’d be kind enough not to mention that to Malcolm… John was supposed to have buried that one before lunchtime!”

With a flourish Nicola drew a zip sign across her mouth. “Sealed,” she said cheerfully. “And I’m a Minister of the Crown, remember. We don’t leak.”

“Unless we tell ye to, you daft bint. Sam, if John’s not buried the fuckin’ OED deeper than King Tut’s bollocks in the next ten minutes I’ll be turning his into ear rings for the PM’s missus at Christmas, yeah? Come in, Nic’la.”

“And a very good afternoon to you, Malcolm.” Somehow facing him was less terrifying than anticipating facing him. “James is refusing to be photographed for the piece. Just thought I should let you know.”

“There is a fucking God! I was going to tell you not to let that devious tosser near the camera, he always looks like a fucking crook.” With the flick of a long hand he directed her into a chair, switching instantly from trivial family problems to the vital political. “And if the fuckers try catchin’ you out about the honours thing, remember: it’s nothing to fucking do with us. Holman’s a fascist, thank God, and if that piss-in-the-wind arsewipe he went to posh school with wants to accept his money for a promise he won’t keep, it’s their problem, not ours. Right?”

“Right.” 

She might gnaw her way through a pint glass before admitting it out loud, but there was something compelling about the man: a definite– if you looked from the right angle – charisma. Those long fingers, jabbing ferociously to emphasise every key point, had a gracefulness about them. As for the eyes – grey and icy in anger yet she’d seen them gleam with mischief too when, fires all safely pissed out, he teased her staff for starting them. “Nicola? Have you heard a single fucking word I’ve been saying here?”

“Sorry.” Sam didn’t pass on advice at first meeting – she took time to weigh up the latest victim first - but once the test had been passed she had given Nicola the most useful tip any novice minister could receive. Lie to the others if you have to. But never, ever think of trying it with Malcolm! “D’ you think they’re likely to…”

“I’m not takin’ any chances.” Momentarily he seemed to sag, tiredness taking over, and to her horror she felt a pang of something – sympathy, that’s what she’d call it, sympathy. Definitely not affection, and categorically not an urge to run her fingers through that thick grey hair, no, certainly not that! “We’ve had two fuck-ups to contain from two fuckin’ interviews today, and I don’t want a third on my desk come Monday from you. Tell ‘em how you made your own cushion covers; praise that boring fucker makin’ a mint from her cheap porn novels if you have to. Just don’t mention flat you used t’ own just outside your own fucking constituency or your daughter’s latest school report and you’ll be fine.”

“Can I have that in writing?” She was learning, Nicola congratulated herself. That was a dismissal, albeit one lacking the usual profanities. Malcolm almost smiled before giving vent to a holler that followed her out the door. 

“Sam! Is that OED story buried yet? And I wouldn’t mind a coffee if you’ve got the time.”

“On my way. Your coat, Minister.”

“Thank you, Sam.” When the younger woman smiled she heard the words fall off the tip of her tongue, helpless to pull them back. “Is he all right?”

“Oh, he’s on fighting form. Been on a proper tear since lunchtime.” Evidently belonging to the same school of thought as her boss – don’t let a politician do anything unaided because they’re bound to fuck it up – Sam helped her into her waterproof jacket and smiled. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the adrenaline levels are dipping a bit, though. Four hours’ solid shouting…” Nicola nodded. “I’d better get that coffee.”

Gratitude surged through her, making Nicola rash. Everybody _knew_ Sam reported back even if nobody ever actually _said_ Sam reported back, but Ollie’s suspicion had implanted itself in her head and she simply had to _know_. “It’s just – apparently he’s never given a friendlier bollocking than Tony had this morning, and then… some of my team were wondering…”

The eyebrow went up again. “Well – is there anything the Director of Communications isn’t communicating to his colleagues? Any change in his personal circumstances his friends might be interested in?”

Whether he would consider _colleagues_ and _friends_ to be interchangeable terms she doubted, but it did at least take the sentence from rank nosiness into amiable concern. 

Not that the effort made a mark in Sam’s veneer of capable disinterest. “If there’s anything his colleagues need to know, I’m sure he’ll communicate it.” 

“SAM! Any chance of that fuckin’ coffee in here?”

“At the top of his voice and with the eloquence of a Clydebank docker,” Nicola concluded for her. With a quick, almost unprofessional grin, the other woman hurried away.

No, it had been pointless trying to probe Sam. Ever efficient, ever unflappable, and, according to any source of any value in the whole of Westminster, the only member of the Communications office who never leaked. If Malcolm did have a secret – any secret – everybody knew it would be safe with her.

That didn’t stop her feeling a failure – _lucky it’s not a new feeling_ , the words even ran through her mind in a Scots accent – when faced with her hopeful staff. “Well you’re the fucking policy geeks,” she muttered, hanging her head like a delinquent in the deli queue. “Think up a policy to find out!”

They were still arguing when she left for home an hour later.


	3. North London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long day. Fortunately for Malcolm he has someone at home to help him unwind from it...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did toy with the idea of keeping her identity secret, but let's face it - it's pretty obvious unless you happen to work at DoSAC!

He was fine until the key turned beneath his hand. It wasn’t until he crossed the threshold that the weight of the day came crashing down on his aching head. Shutting out the world wasn’t a routine task anymore; it was a matter of fucking survival.

The door to his right creaked slightly, spilling out a puddle of amber from the single lamp in the corner. “Bad day at the office, dear?” she murmured as her silhouette smothered its soft warmth and her small, knowing smile glinted behind the swinging curtain of her glistening hair. He groaned.

“What other fucking kind is there? I’m late, aren’t I?”

“Ten o’clock news starts in five. I suppose you should watch it.”

He laughed for the first time all day, surprised by how good it felt. Nothing like as good as her hands sliding over his shoulders of course, pushing his heavy black wool coat to the floor, but good all the same. Different.

Had he forgotten how to laugh – really laugh – before she moved into his life? Her lips touched his, and Malcolm forgot to care. 

He swayed into her, one arm wrapped securely around her waist while she rubbed against him, vaguely surprised to discover she’d changed from her working clothes into a cool satin kimono – black with gold-trimmed red orchids, a dangerously impulsive buy on a recent Prime Ministerial trip to Japan - and precious little underneath. The soft swell of belly and breasts through thin layers of cloth felt unbelievably erotic and the sensation increased when she curled one hand around the knot of his tie, simultaneously loosing it and getting him closer, deepening the kiss. “You’re worn out,” she whispered.

“Not fuckin’ unusual.” Reluctantly he let her go, only to find a tumbler being presented in one hand while she kept a firm grip on his tie with the other. “At least it wasn’t the DoSAC dipshits this time.”

“Better them than the Treasury,” she argued, watching him roll the first peaty drops of whisky around his tongue. “Nobody takes the Department of Sod All bar Cock-ups seriously.”

“’cept the fuckers that work there,” he countered, toeing off his shoes with a satisfied sigh. “No, we’ve got away with it this time. The Eton Blackshirts understand Mutually Assured Destruction; they’re not kickin’ up a stink.”

“Holman’s bank accounts?” she suggested. He unleashed a feral grin.

“That’s just the start; they know it, we know it, and the snivelling cunts know we know it. Sorry about all the shouting this afternoon, by the way.”

“Don’t be.” The small quiver that ran through her whole body echoed in her voice as Sam Cassidy took a long, slow lick at her boss’s neck. “You know what it does to me when you _really_ get going.”

“Weird lass.” It would take a lot more to make the muscles of his neck and shoulders uncoil but her soft snuffle and the feel of her fingers gently prising his jacket off had as soothing an effect on his knotted stomach as the auld water of life itself. Slowly he stretched, leaning forward enough to help her remove the outer layer of his Armani armour. “Wringing out your knickers, were ye?”

Her breath fanned hot and wet against his cheek. “I keep spares in my desk,” she confided, trickling a low laugh into his ear at the quick shiver that went through him. Malcolm wasn’t sure what gave him more of a kick; the sultry sound in the semi-darkness or the thought of her scurrying through the corridors of power with a fresh pair of smalls to replace ones already drenched by the sound of his irate voice. “And I should be the one apologising - getting you up behind the filing cabinet like that this afternoon. _Most_ unprofessional.”

“Yeah, definitely got me up, love.” She snorted at the deliberate crudeness, nuzzling the side of his neck while he snatched the remote and lifted the television’s volume long enough to confirm the principal offender of the day had at least got his lines right when pushed out the door like a drunkard at closing time. “Retard! If he’d kept his mouth shut in the first place...”

“Malcolm, this me, remember? You loved reading him the riot act!”

His broad smile, so seldom seen outside these walls, relaxed the fine lines of tension in his face and turned a man of fifty into a naughty boy. “Tears again when he left?”

“Two tissues. God, you were fucking magnificent!”

“Language, young lady.”

“Learned from the best, sir.” If she ever dared call him that in the office she’d be asking for both barrels but here, off-duty, he was almost amused by the sarcastic formality. The arm around her shoulders tightened perceptibly.

She had no idea what had come over her; why, at the end of his third straight oral evisceration of an elected representative she had forced her way into his office and pushed him up hard against the wall, shoving her tongue down his throat so fast she could have choked him. It had just felt right at the time.

And he’d enjoyed it, once the shock wore off. Pulled her up against his lean body, hands roaming, tongue tangling with hers until imminent oxygen depletion had forced him to let her go. Urged her out of the room with glinting eyes and an unaccustomed flush on his cheeks, hair a little dishevelled and the beginnings of a smile on his swollen lips. 

Neither had said a word.

Neither, Sam realised now, had needed to.

They watched the end of the bulletin in silence before he flipped channels to catch the Defence Secretary on _Newsnight_ , contenting himself with the odd derisory hiss at every minor hesitation, a soothing descant to the shrillness emanating from the screen. A quick grope behind the cupboards, she mused: not quite his style, but still more credible than this cosy late-night domesticity to the wide-eyed young woman who had begun working for him so many years ago.

Was it five years? Six? The days and months had melded together, punctuated by sharp points of memory. The first bollocking she’d heard without embarrassment – probably on her second day. The first time he’d snarled at Jamie for daring – _daring_ – to raise his voice toward _MY P.A!_ She remembered the thrill, the giddy realisation that Malcolm would stand up for her against even his most trusted – those were the days! – associate. And she remembered – vividly – the first time her heart had stuttered when he swept in one wintry morning, already shrugging out of his snow-spattered coat as he flashed her that rare, dazzling smile to accompany his cheery “Morning, Sam! Like the hair.”

So what that he was twenty years her senior? Old enough, as he’d put it in his own inimitable style, to be her fucking father. He had the vitality, the zest for life, of a man half his age. He was handsome – elegant, even - and whatever he might lack in strictly classical beauty he more than compensated in sheer charismatic presence. 

She’d fancied him from the outset, hard though he found it to believe. It hadn’t taken her vivid imagination, much praised through her school career, long to start creating scenarios just like this afternoon’s little encounter; him, hot and hard in her arms, kissing her as if his life depended on it and to hell with the crises swirling like radioactive clouds outside the door. It had become one of her favourite fantasies.

Never, though, never had she imagined snuggling into his side in the peace of a shadowy lounge, lulled by the rhythm of his breathing while he sipped a drink and Martin whatshisface from Defence actually got his lines right through an interview. Malcolm Tucker and domesticity – the two concepts had been as diametrically opposed as Daleks and duck ponds. 

“Not bad for a certified nonce,” he announced, quiet satisfaction enriching the Scots burr. Tiredly she lifted her head from his shoulder and planted a soft kiss against his cheek.

“High praise,” she teased, delighting in his answering chuckle. “Come to bed now?”

“There’s still Sky News,” he quipped, even as he was turning off the television, setting aside the glass he’d continued to cradle before helping her, as delicately as if she were made of the finest bone china, to her feet. Sam rubbed herself suggestively against him, feeling herself melt at his body’s immediate response.

“Maybe not,” he breathed, cupping her face in his hands for a slow, smouldering kiss. Sam knew then it would be a long, long time before she could construct a coherent sentence again.  


*

  
When she did it was with her head pillowed on his chest and the steady, strong thump of his heartbeat beneath her ear. “I think DoSAC have found us out.”

“DoSAC? That bunch of twats can’t find out where their own shit comes from!”

“Ollie Reeder’s policy documents, mostly.” Stretching across him she fumbled to light the bedside lamp, her heart turned over by the sight of him blinking, owlish and dishevelled, grey locks a-tumble, in the faint light. “I don’t know – Malcolm, stop glowering at me like that, it’s unnerving. It’s just that Nicola Murray asked me before she left if there was any _change in circumstances_ you’d like to communicate to your colleagues.”

“No change in the last – oh, five years,” he drawled, returning her to her proper middle-of-the-night place across his chest with a light tug. “But how would she…”

His voice tailed off, and not even the defence of being thoroughly shagged by him in the last hour could quite protect Sam from the shimmer of dread that always preceded a Tucker tirade.” Och, that snivelling little wanker! It was him!”

“You’ve had Oxbridge Oliver backed up against a wall again? Honestly Malc, anyone’d think you liked the strutting dickhead!”

She paused to let him sputter the most indignant denial he could manage in his post-coital haze – still impressive, but lacking the volcanic vituperation of which he was capable. “I must’ve left a spot of lipstick on your collar or something.”

“Right. No more fucking lipstick.” 

“No lipstick. Snogging on the job’s all right, though?” 

He shifted her like a rag doll until she was staring right down into steely eyes that even in shadow she could see were twinkling with mischief and mirth. In unison they chanted Malcolm Tucker’s first essential rule of political survival.

“Any fucking thing’s all right as long as you don’t get fucking caught!”


End file.
